


god loves lola

by lemons (rinsed)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: House Parties, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Relationship Study, Underage Drinking, gross achey bullshit, lapslock, making out in a park for funsies, renjun smokes in this, side 00s, there's like vague discussion around characters having sex when they're 17 but nothing graphic, vague discussions to fuckin in cars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-23 01:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30048075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinsed/pseuds/lemons
Summary: sometimes, they’ll be talking, and donghyuck will look at him in this steady, unabating way, as if he’s searching for something— no, as if he already knows something is there, and is searching for the right way to make renjun show it to him.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	god loves lola

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inqlickr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inqlickr/gifts).



> thanks inq for helping me figure out how to post again since i haven't uploaded here in eons
> 
> if ur subscribed to me(?) because of the tans i know i always say ill post and then dont put i have a 54k wip ok like i committed to the move this time
> 
> like i said in the tags i do touch on two characters having sex when they're seventeen but i kinda just say they have sex but i just thought id say in case anyone reading is super averse to anything like that
> 
> also like generally visceral imagery or whatever so if ur like squeamish maybe not this 1
> 
> thanxxxx

> _Hey, little heartache, turn us to the highway_
> 
> _Let's get into trouble, you make it look good_
> 
> solange, looks good with trouble
> 
> _Just dance me to the dark side of the gym_
> 
> _Chances are I will let you do most anything_
> 
> leonard cohen, memories
> 
> _ If you catch me with my hands in the till _
> 
> _ I promise, sugar, I wasn't trying to steal _
> 
> los campesinos!, death to los campesinos!

the first time donghyuck and renjun meet — really meet — they’re fifteen. meet is somewhat of an exaggeration, because they’d known each other peripherally for years. maybe once or twice they’d sat at opposite ends of a classroom, renjun catching donghyuck’s eye for a fleeting second as half the class turns around to see what all the laughter is about from that side of the room. maybe once or twice they’d stood in the same group of people before class, because chenle and donghyuck were friends, and chenle and renjun were kind of friends, held over from a childhood friendship when their houses were just down the street from each other. sometimes, they’d still say hi.

fifteen, though— when they’re fifteen someone’s parents have the bright idea to go somewhere for the weekend, and word gets passed around the entire school year. and then it’s free game for pretty much anybody to show up. yangyang manages to convince his older brother to buy the two of them a small bottle of vodka to split (or rather, yangyang manages to convince his older brother’s boyfriend, ten, to wear him down until he gives in. more often than not, it seems like yangyang and ten were on the same team against kun, funnily enough). he, yangyang and jeno pour it into a water bottle from the school vending machine and take turns sipping it (straight, because they’re too young and too stupid to know any better), passing it back and forth totally inconspicuously as they walk to the bus stop. they feel so grown up, impressive and new — embarrassed in the presence of their mothers, legs getting too long for their favourite jeans, excited because they just got their braces off, awkward napes, awkward knees, awkward elbows, awkward chests.

on their fifth stop, chenle, mark, donghyuck and jaemin make their way up the stairs of the bus, hollering upon the sight of familiar faces, reeling with all the excitement of being drunk and underage and in places you aren’t supposed to be. they ride the bus all the way to the party together and they don’t seem to part, returning to each other throughout the night as if somehow bound by such a strange, superficial bond. chenle gives him a few bottles of some kind of cloyingly sweet alcopop, strawberry flavoured and sickly, and god, if he isn’t gonna drink them all. the two of them reel throughout the party, going over and over old memories they share, astounded by their own bond and their own nostalgia as if it’s brand new — the way drunk teenagers always are. _why don’t we hang out more, why aren’t we best friends? come to my house tomorrow!_

he sits with jeno and jaemin for a little while in one of the bedrooms, listens to mark fumble with the guitar as he tries to remember the chords to some smoochy R&B song from the early 2000s. he wanders around on his own, weaving through the crowds of old friends and new acquaintances, stopping every so often to catch up with people he didn’t speak to much as if they were the closest of friends, as if they’d spent months missing each other. shoot a winning shot in someone else’s game of beer pong, shout along to the lyrics of some song someone’s blasting in the living room, take a hit of someone else’s joint. he barely remembers much of the night at all. and at some point dead in the middle, between taking some unknown, revolting shot in the kitchen and throwing up sugary red bile in the bathroom as the sun rises, he’s wandering through the garden aimlessly, likely looking for the next thing to capture his interest. and donghyuck had been lingering outside with a few friends, and somehow, it ends up just being the two of them left after everyone else peels away, likely doing the same thing as renjun was. and behind the old flowerpots round the side of the house, donghyuck kisses him. up against the brick wall, tongue and all, teeth pulling at his bottom lip. he tastes like rum and coke and he smells like cheap aftershave, and he gives renjun his first ever hickey, just left of his throat.

when renjun is seventeen, that group he’d found at the party have become his closest friends. he doesn’t really know how it happens, but yangyang, chenle and jeno end up in the same math class and he and mark end up sitting a few rows from each other in english. jeno and jaemin appear as if they’ve been best friends their whole life. it all ends up just falling into place.

he and donghyuck never really spoke about the hickey incident after it happened. they didn’t have to. it seems like, in high school, everyone just makes out with everyone, just to see what it’s like, just to see what all the fuss is about. fun’s fun, of course it is, and renjun must be crazy if he thinks that there is something hanging strange and unsaid in the air every time he and donghyuck are alone together.

straight after it happened, he thought that donghyuck was the shit. he felt satisfied with himself, as if he was brand new. he felt loose and shiny, a glowering stone in a fireplace.

in the past two years, renjun had grown upwards and inwards. he could never stop thinking. he felt impossible, unnerved, waiting for something he didn’t yet understand. it was as if he’d grown up misshapen, caught up and twisted like string bound in a knot. he feels his youth with unease, with insecurity. he wonders if there is something wrong with him — to want as he wants, to feel lack as he does, sharp and penetrating, so, so inundated with it. he feels it silently, tries to tamp it down as best he can, fit himself in the shape he knows he’s supposed to be. he likes music, he likes taking pictures, he likes cigarettes. he does what he can.

he waits, strange and incapable and grasping. he doesn’t feel pleased with growing the way he should, the way his peers must.

the way his friends must. he watches his friends, content and funny and _easy_ , growing into themselves with belonging and dignity. he wonders if his friends would have still chosen him those two years ago, had they known he’d grow to be so unlike them. or, at least, that’s how it feels. sometimes he feels embarrassed at himself, at the juvenile cruelty he views them with. because they’re his friends, he loves them and he loves to be around them, of course, but at the same time some part of him wishes to have what they have— or, worse, for them to not have what they have, for them to be just the same as him. he hates no one, but he is hateful, he can’t help it; resentful at his shortcomings, resentful at his empty spaces.

his embarrassment forces its edges sharp into his sides the most when he watches donghyuck. he can’t even admit it to himself. donghyuck who has never had to envy anybody, donghyuck who arrests every room he enters, as if he owns it and only allows everyone to stay out of the goodness of his heart. donghyuck with all his charisma and ease, donghyuck who left renjun astounded with himself because he kissed him (a feeling that renjun tries to pack away deep and shameful in some far off recess of himself, and god, don’t ask him about it, because he has yet to even tell himself).

sometimes donghyuck will be sitting beside him and say, plainly, something like: “you smell like smoke”; just to get renjun to admit to it, just to goad renjun into satisfying him. _i do, because i just have, are you happy now?_ renjun will think. he’ll normally bat it off with a curt “you already know why”, but it’ll sit buried under his skin, unremitting. and he knows donghyuck knows this.

he doesn’t hate him. not even a little. he couldn’t, even if he tried. but to be placed on a string with so little effort, with so little _thought_ — it claws something out from deep down inside him, digs past all the sinew and bile, down to something even more visceral. something infuriated.

sometimes, they’ll be talking, and donghyuck will look at him in this steady, unabating way, as if he’s searching for something— no, as if he already knows something is there, and is searching for the right way to make renjun show it to him.

seventeen, and donghyuck sits on renjun’s childhood bed, stale peace of old, callow ease hanging over the both of them. having donghyuck in the room grew up in feels like talons sharp in his thigh. he swivels in his desk chair, pretending to be occupied with something in his hands, pretending not to feel donghyuck’s eyes on him. renjun said he could stay over when they were all at jeno’s house, because yangyang and jaemin were already staying there and mark was on vacation. he is filled with an incessant longing to be gone, an incessant longing not to be looked at. he feels himself shrinking inside of himself.

“you can go to bed whenever you want.” renjun offers, his voice feeling alien in the room.

“okay.”

they continue to sit. renjun’s hands work as if impelled by something foreign.

“i don’t think i’ve ever been to your house.” donghyuck says.

“no, i guess not.”

“this isn’t how i thought your room would look.”

“why would it be?” renjun replies. donghyuck blinks, intrigued. “it looks the same as it did when i was a kid. you didn’t know me then.”

donghyuck only looks at him. he begins to laugh. renjun feels like a doe in a clearing, hypervigilant. and it’s strange, the way it feels like danger, being looked at like that.

what else is strange — it’s lonely here. in his own bedroom, the only place that’s ever been his. funny.

“i like it.” donghyuck finally says, leaning back a little.

“thanks.” there’s a beat. “what did you think it’d look like?”

donghyuck shrugs.

“smaller.”

“funny.”

donghyuck smiles wide, all teeth.

“what?” renjun asks, after a beat.

“what?”

“you keep looking at me.”

“i’m talking to you.”

“you know what i mean. do you want something?”

donghyuck shrugs. after a moment, renjun starts to laugh.

“you’re so weird.” he chuckles. donghyuck begins to laugh, too.

“why?”

“you just are.”

“why? what did i do?”

“nothing.”

“why am i weird?”

“you just are.”

“and you’re not.”

“i didn’t say that.” renjun waits a moment. “do _you_ think so?”

he expects donghyuck to be affronted by the question. but he isn’t. he only shakes his head.

“i like your pictures.” donghyuck says, after a moment, nodding his head at the photographs covering the opposite wall.

renjun turns in his seat to look at them. some are recent, some are photos he got printed from his old phone. some pretentious and faux-artistic, some blurry pictures he’d taken at a house party of his friends.

donghyuck points. “isn’t that me?”

he’s referring to a picture renjun had taken on his phone at school, when nobody was really looking. jaemin was sitting on donghyuck’s lap, donghyuck’s hands curling over his elbow and his forearm. jaemin has one arm draped around his shoulders, one pinned to his side by donghyuck’s hands. he had enough leeway with his hands that he was playing with one of the buttons on donghyuck’s blazer. it was interesting, renjun had thought, the two of them in their school uniforms draped over each other like that. how it was such a normality of their daily lives.

“is it?” renjun lies. he begins to burn. he wonders if donghyuck will think it’s weird of him, to have taken that picture. if he’ll think that renjun considers him an object of obsession, or even if he’ll think that the entire thing is strange.

“yeah. it’s me.”

“oh.”

there’s a beat. renjun wonders if he’s intentionally leaving him to stew in his uncertainty.

“i like that picture. i didn’t know you’d taken it.”

“oh. yeah. i just did it without really thinking about it.”

“why did you?”

“what?”

“why’d you take it?”

“i don’t know. i just liked how it looked.”

“it’s nice.” donghyuck says. “cool that you notice things like that. it looks so serious when you look at it.”

“i guess so.”

“but it’s funny. it didn’t feel like that at the time.”

“no, it wouldn’t. neither of you are like— i don’t know. serious about stuff like that.”

“stuff like what?”

everything hot and unsorted lashes at renjun’s surface. they’re picking their way towards particular questions. a nervous laugh escapes him. donghyuck’s eyes turn to him, steady, pellucid.

“just— like that. you know what i mean.” renjun bats.

donghyuck hums. “what, does it bother you?”

renjun bristles. “what do you mean?”

“stuff like that. does it bother you?”

“no, of course not. i’ve just never been like that with anybody. it’s easy for you.”

“maybe i just like attention.” donghyuck muses, clicking his teeth.

“i wasn’t— you know. i wasn’t saying that.”

“i know. i’m being serious.”

“i— well.” renjun starts. he’s surprised. “so does everybody.”

“yeah?”

“yeah. just in— different ways. maybe. and i think some people are better at it than others.”

“like who?”

“like you.”

“me?”

“come on.” renjun rolls his eyes.

“what?”

“you know— you must know. everyone looks at you when you walk into a room.”

“that’s not true.”

“come on. you think you’re like everyone else?”

“well— everybody’s different.”

“you think you’re like me?”

“do you think i’m like you?”

renjun stiffens. he doesn’t know how to navigate such an absurd question. he opens his mouth and closes it.

“you can’t be serious.” he decides.

“why not?”

renjun begins to laugh.

“i can’t even entertain this conversation.” 

“i don’t think we’re so different.”

“but you— everything’s so easy for you.”

he wonders if donghyuck picks up on the agitation in his voice. he’s picking around the small, hard truth in the middle of the two of them: _you have everything i want_.

“you’re funny.” donghyuck only says.

“i’m not joking.” renjun retorts. “you don’t think so?”

“you don’t think i’m bored the same way you’re bored?”

renjun frowns.

“i can tell.”

renjun blinks at him. bored meaning unsatisfied. his nerves start to worm to his surface.

“i mean, remember when i kissed you?”

“we were fifteen.”

“why’d you let me?”

“wanted to know what it was like. same reason you did it— everyone wants to know what it’s like. everyone’s bored when they’re fifteen. everyone’s insecure, i mean, everyone just wants to feel wanted at that age.” renjun pauses. “doesn’t matter who it is.”

“doesn’t matter who it is.” donghyuck repeats. “exactly.”

renjun can’t imagine donghyuck hollow in all the same ways. but he’s astounded all the same, as if he’s seen a brand new person he had never known before. and shouldn’t it have been obvious?

renjun wants to ask, over and over: _what do you mean what do you mean what do you mean what do you mean_

“so?”

“why would it be any different now?” donghyuck asks. “only now, it’s sex.”

renjun finally surrenders. he leans back in his chair, clicks his teeth.

“well.” he acquiesces. “i wouldn’t know.”

there’s a beat. 

“i can show you.”

renjun stares at him, certain that he can’t be serious. donghyuck stares back, and for a moment, they look at each other, astonished. strange and fresh and tender, like two wounds either side of a spine.

donghyuck doesn’t yield; same as always.

seventeen, and they find themselves on renjun’s childhood bed with the lights out, renjun burning as he tries to force one of his stuffed animals down the side of the mattress. burning as he writhes underneath donghyuck, as he drags his hipbones down into his own with a scary, but not unfamiliar, rapacity. seventeen, and he finds himself with his second hickey from donghyuck, this time blooming purple all over his hipbone (and third, and fourth, stowed away underneath his clothes so that he can only see them when he showers). he remembers how it felt, the occasional graze of teeth, the way it made waves of needles hike up his spine and back down again, the embarrassment of not being able to hold in a gasp. second hickey; one less virginity; and some brand new sickness brought to life inside of him: an incessant and monstrous ache, once learned, never forgotten.

the second time donghyuck and renjun meet — really meet — they’re twenty. the final year of high school proceeded with little fanfare. they never really addressed the virginity incident after it happened, continuing as if it was a normal stopping point of any friendship. they saw each other every so often after graduation, but their second meeting happens at jaemin’s birthday party. renjun is sitting on the windowsill of jaemin’s bedroom, one foot on the roof and one tucked underneath himself, smoking a cigarette, when donghyuck half-stumbles into the room. his hand on the door is heavy. renjun turns to look over his shoulder at him, offering a lazy smile.

“huang renjun,” donghyuck begins. “bad habits, still.”

“looks like it.”

being at school, they saw each other every day, so any differences in the ways they looked were never noticeable. now, though, renjun can tell how donghyuck has grown into his features. he looks at his jaw, throat, where his clavicles stretch out to the slope of his shoulders.

“how have you been?”

“alright, you?”

“yeah, great, what are you doing now?”

“i’m a waiter.”

“you?”

“you sound surprised.”

“i figured you’d be, like… a poet, or something.”

renjun splutters.

“what for?”

“i don’t know. you always had that vibe. look at you, smoking alone on the windowsill.”

renjun concedes, cocking his head.

“i don’t have to ask you. we’ve all seen your instagram.”

“don’t.” hyuck snickers.

“aren’t you a little _short_ to be a model?”

“depends where you’re working.”

“jaemin, i get. but you?”

“jaemin’s my height.”

“jaemin looks like _that_.”

donghyuck picks up a cushion, chucks it at renjun’s foot.

“makes sense why i don’t get paid much.” donghyuck muses.

renjun laughs. they sit in silence for a moment, renjun dragging on his cigarette before holding it out to donghyuck, eyebrows raised.

donghyuck takes it, fingers brushing renjun’s as he does. renjun considers him as he approaches, staring at the freckle on the high plane of his cheekbone as he leans over him to blow out the window. donghyuck leans against the windowframe, his side leaning into renjun’s leg, as he hands him the cigarette back.

“i’m glad to see you.” renjun says.

“really?” donghyuck asks, archly.

renjun rolls his eyes.

“yeah. it’s been a little while, right?”

“i guess it has.”

“fast life, modelling.”

donghyuck rolls his eyes right back. 

“whatever. beats working at that bar.”

“lucky you, getting out of service.”

“yeah. lucky me.”

“well.” renjun begins. he passes donghyuck the cigarette. “are you happier now?”

donghyuck regards him for a moment, trying to gauge whether or not he’s serious.

“what?” renjun laughs.

“sure. i’m happier now.”

“that’s good.”

“you look different.”

“i do?”

“yeah.”

“good different?”

“weird different.”

“ah.” renjun laughs. “it hasn’t even been that long since you last saw me.”

“i know. i don’t know what it is.”

donghyuck nudges renjun’s foot with his knee. he passes the cigarette back.

“miss me, then?”

“oh, so much.”

“how much?”

“too much. kills me inside.”

“i bet.”

“what’s weird different about me?”

donghyuck pauses for a second.

“your legs.”

“my _legs?_ ” renjun splutters.

“sure.” donghyuck asserts, same sarcastic conviction. “not your height, though. your height’s the same.”

“fuck you.”

they both laugh. donghyuck leans further into the window frame, further into renjun’s leg.

“i don’t know what it is.” donghyuck mumbles, after a moment. “you just do.”

“maybe it’s just you.”

“maybe.”

renjun shifts a little, moving back and pushing his legs to the side so donghyuck can sit on the windowsill. donghyuck looks at him, looks at him, steady and unceasing as he does. renjun stubs out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe.

“so, you live with jaemin now?” renjun asks.

they talk to each other for a long time, voices softening as the night crawls further into darkness. they lean further into each other as the night goes on, less self conscious as the time passes. donghyuck’s smallest fingertip traces up and down the part of renjun’s ankle exposed between his trouser leg and sock. but he doesn’t stop looking at him.

and the further into the night they fall and the longer donghyuck looks at him, the more renjun feels so boldly exposed. as if no time had passed at all.

it may just be the weight of all the years leaving him too tired for every stupid insignificance, for any kind of posturing, but it’s him who eventually closes the dearth between them this time, catching donghyuck in the small window between there being nothing left to say and waiting for someone to decide what they’ll do next.

and so he does.

donghyuck is a better kisser than he was when he was fifteen. of course, he would be, they’re both older, more experienced, less insecure. but it’s something renjun can’t help but notice. he smells different, too; less like cheap, teenage aftershave and more like something cleaner, something subtle enough to only notice when you’re _that close_. a slight tinge of smoke lingers on his mouth.

renjun feels the same as he did all those years before; strange, incapable, grasping. lack a palpable echo throughout the middle of him. he grabs at the back of donghyuck’s hair, pushing him deeper into his neck. donghyuck works up to the enclave of his jaw, up to his earlobe, taking it between his teeth. renjun works his fingertips over the knobs of his spine, antsily down the neckline of his shirt. he feels donghyuck’s lips pull against the skin of his ear, soft sounds of him breathing forcing renjun’s skin into bristles.

“wait—“ donghyuck groans, but he doesn’t stop, and renjun doesn’t want him to stop, and so it takes a few seconds for him to come back to himself and croak out a strained “what?”

“what?”

“you said wait—“

his breath catches in his throat, capping off what he said with something stilted. donghyuck has pushed up the hem of his shirt, running his hands over the muscles and bones of his back, digging his fingertips into the spaces between each rung of his ribs.

“i have my car—“ donghyuck breathes. “do you want to—?”

“yeah—“

“you want to—?”

“yeah, yeah—“

and so they do. they park a few streets away, under a tree, soft orange light only just leaking in through the windows from all the way down the street. the windows are foggy and their breaths soften and wetten in the same way. donghyuck’s hipbone digs into the juncture between renjun’s thighs and his hips, renjun’s knees writhing ungainly under donghyuck’s knees. he grabs at donghyuck’s face, strange ache pooling in his extremities. it’s strange, how much it starts to feel like pain, even when it’s the furthest thing from. in between his gasps, donghyuck says his name, just once, just quietly, and it’s as if he’s taken one long talon and drawn it all the way across renjun, clawing right down deep at his chest and stopping shallow right where his abdomen slopes down, down.

it’s the second time of many. renjun just can’t help himself.

for such adversaries, the two of them hardly fight. they were never together, it wouldn’t be right to call it that — they were never ready for that kind of commitment — but even when they’re the closest thing to it, they hardly fight. or rather, they hardly explode at each other. it’s more of a prolonged, slow battle; a constant push and pull. it happens sometimes, though.

“you’re trying to make me angry.” renjun will huff. “i can tell.”

“i’m not trying to make you angry—“

“yes you _are,_ you’re trying to piss me off— would you stop laughing—“

“what do you want to hear, that you’re right?”

“it’s not _about_ what i want to hear, i don’t want to hear that i’m right! tell me i’m _wrong!_ ”

“you want me to tell you that you’re _wrong?_ ”

“if that’s what you think—!”

and they’ll continue in their strange circle, always somehow finding themselves eased into the same mutual understanding they’ve come to know. he knows, now— donghyuck was more like him than he had realised. he had the same way about him, deep down, the same insatiability, the same agitated ache that sits underneath everything else, hides itself in the quietest and darkest places. it finds its way, sightlessly, to the surface every now and then. it’s the first time renjun has ever understood, really understood, why _crazy for you_ is such a cliché.

donghyuck is funny. on his surface he has a certain, biting charisma. in every room, he’s unmatched, always open to a combatant but never allowing anyone to rise to his level. god, he’s annoying, but if he isn’t easy to love. and under that lies something vicious, something he can tap into in this blasé, devil-may-care way. his vindictiveness is almost artful, executed in this manner that almost feels magnanimous, _you-should-be-so-lucky._ he can, at one time, make you feel like the most important person in the world. then, as sudden as that had happened, very unimportant. and then so important, all over again. sweet and charming, mean streak striking hard and fast through the middle. renjun has never figured it out, if he gets a kick out of being shocking or if that’s just what he’s always been like. but every day, it feels the same, as if he’s standing knee-deep in someone else’s lake, trying to bat away leeches. but he doesn’t mind it at all.

under all of that, though, if one was to chew all the way down to his stomach and even further, all the way inside, clawing past every cloying shade of pink and red, they’d find something not unlike a wound. something that never heals, that never closes, that begs to be itched, to be sated, unceasing and incessant. a place that echoes within itself, a place that pleads and longs with a harrowingly familiar ferocity. down there — and sometimes renjun will cleave a fingernail right into the middle of him, just to make him see that he _knows_ — down there, they’re the same. nothing either of them can do about it.

it seems as if they have found each other, hungry and thirsty, and have bitten and hungered at each other trying to get to something gratifying, something palpable. sometimes, renjun wants nothing more than to put his fingers inside donghyuck’s mouth, let the communion of their distance hum through the both of them as blood does through veins. push his thumbs up against his teeth, wrestle himself inside, make a home there. but no, it wouldn’t be enough. because sometimes, donghyuck will be inside of renjun — achingly so, unbearably so — and renjun drags his body into his own, hipbones and ribcages bruising into one another, nails drawing blood across his back, donghyuck’s mouth drawing blood to the very edge of renjun’s skin, to the very rampart of the air. and no, no— it’s still not close enough. donghyuck’s tongue sinks into his mouth, their skin pulling red and florid against each other— not close enough, never never never.

he must be crazy. he must want donghyuck inside of him like a knife, hands inside of his face. want him to take off his flesh and unpick the locks of his bones, plant himself inside of his ribcage as an animal in a zoo.

sometimes donghyuck will pull back and look at him with those eyes, stubborn and unyielding; renjun’s fast, blinding, swollen sun. it’s as if renjun can feel his bones blanche, sun-bleached and faded. he wonders if donghyuck knows, the way he wears him down. he wonders if he knows, really knows, what he is, what he does. he wonders if he knows that the light the sun casts on the moon makes blood look black, makes oceans blur into the night as if they never existed at all.

“i saw you sitting at that window, you know.” donghyuck breathes, fingers dragging across the bones of renjun’s knee.

“what?”

donghyuck pulls back a little, cold rushing to renjun’s neck at the site of his absence. he’s been kissing him for hours. they’ve been in that honeymoon, fevered mood where they can’t keep away from each other. they’re sitting on the blue astroturf of some park behind donghyuck’s house, late enough in the day for no one to be there. the summer sun is waning, air dusty and pink. renjun sits on the curb by the fence, donghyuck between his knees.

“jaemin’s.” he murmurs, leaning up to kiss him on the mouth.

renjun doesn’t have it in him to ask donghyuck to elaborate, in spite of his own curiosity. after a few moments, donghyuck takes his lower lip in his teeth, unassuming until he bites down, hard. renjun flinches.

“i’m _bleeding_ , you asshole—“

donghyuck laughs, leaning back to sit on his feet. he places his mouth on renjun’s knee, resting it there as he looks out over the park.

“you’re a piece of shit.”

he feels donghyuck chuckle, hot against his skin. he digs his teeth a little into his knee, just to tease him. he’s lucky renjun doesn’t force his knee forward and knock his teeth out.

“what about jaemin’s?” renjun remembers.

donghyuck adjusts himself, raising his head so it’s his chin on renjun’s knee.

“i saw you there.”

“i know. we were at a party together. for, like, hours.”

donghyuck shakes his head. after a moment, his eyes flicker from the park to renjun.

“at the window.”

“so?”

“i went outside, don’t remember why, and i saw you sitting there. and i wanted to see you.”

renjun rakes his fingers through donghyuck’s hair, looks at him, looks at him, looks at him. long hair, bedroom eyes, dusk falling like honey over the both of them.

“i wanted…” donghyuck begins, letting the thought slip away as easily as it came.

“what?” renjun laughs, softly. “you wanted to fuck me?”

donghyuck laughs, too. then shrugs. he knocks a fingertip against renjun’s knee with his free hand.

“i wanted _you._ ” he mumbles. “i saw you up there. when i— it wasn’t an accident.”

“no?”

“no.”

“i thought you were just bored.”

renjun’s finger draws down his temple, to the arch of his eyebrow, back up into his hair.

“i did, too, but i wasn’t. not that time. not like the first time.”

“what, when we were seventeen?”

“mm.”

“you fucked me because you were bored?” renjun laughs. “i was a virgin, asshole.”

donghyuck laughs, shakes his head, rising to kiss the side of renjun’s mouth.

“i fucked you because i wanted to know what it felt like.”

“i thought you weren’t a v—“

“i wasn’t. i wanted to know what it felt like with _you._ ”

“oh.”

renjun wonders if donghyuck can feel the heat on his face.

“i meant that i only came over because i was bored. i wanted to see what you’d do. but once i was there…”

“yeah?”

donghyuck laughs at renjun’s push for elaboration. donghyuck kisses his jaw, his ear and the skin behind it, all the way down his neck. renjun watches the sky deepen in its shade of pink.

“my point is—“ donghyuck sighs. “i did it on purpose.”

“i kissed _you_.”

“i wanted you to. i was waiting for you.”

renjun feels a funny sense of pride strike within himself. donghyuck, waiting for _him?_

he knows that donghyuck knows, all the way down to the meat of his guts, that he could force anyone to their knees only half-trying. donghyuck must know this. it’s in the way he does anything, the way he walks into a room, the way he stares, stands. renjun tugs at where his hair tapers off at the nape. donghyuck, his hair, his face, his shoulderblades, his kneecaps, his hands, his throat, his clothes, his voice— it could bring renjun down in even less than a second. he’d never say it, he’d never free that secret from where he keeps it forced down inside of himself, but a truth is a truth and renjun is smart enough to know when he’s in over his head. who could ever keep lee donghyuck waiting?

“you’re a liar.” he laughs.

“you don’t believe me?”

“course not.”

donghyuck kisses him softly on the mouth, pulling back just enough to look at him, forehead still touching renjun’s.

“swear to god.”

“you’re fucking around.”

“cross my heart. on my life. on _yours._ ”

“bold.”

“i mean it.”

“why are you telling me this?”

“why not?”

renjun has nothing to say to that. donghyuck works his way back over him, renjun hiding his face in donghyuck’s shoulder. when he looks up, the sky is almost dark, purple soaking through both of them like a bruise.

renjun will do anything donghyuck says. he’d never admit it, not to anybody, not even to himself. but it’s there, in every little corner, lingering in the dark. it’s in the walls, the taps, the cracks between the tiles, the cupboards in the kitchen, the cigarette butts in the ashtray. he imagines that at some point he’d choke on it, the way it bottlenecks in his chest and immobilises him whenever the two of them are together. sometimes he’ll stop for a moment, hands grabbing their way over to some part of donghyuck before he even knows what he’s doing. and sometimes he will keep them to himself, shove them between his knees just so he can keep an eye on where they are, where they’re going. donghyuck seems like he knows. maybe renjun is just paranoid, but sometimes donghyuck will look at him in this specific way, like he’s on the edge of something, like he’s waiting. and it’ll spike something furious in renjun, something that can’t be helped — _are you going to make me say it, do i have to write it on your bedroom wall —_ because donghyuck has always known how to find that one sore spot, and how to gouge into it to get what he wants.

in small, private moments, donghyuck will show renjun the little hiding places he has inside of him. he’ll make himself small, curl himself right up into renjun’s side, as if to tell him _i’m all yours, and aren’t you lucky._ he’ll draw a hand across his hair, fingertips closing over the top of his ear, finger pressing down on the curve behind it, down to his jaw, right at the soft spot underneath the bone where his heart can be felt squeezed right up against the skin. and renjun will feel his heart hammer under donghyuck’s fingers, a drawn-out moment toeing the line between mercy or merciless. and, always with a certain finality, donghyuck will press his finger down just a little before he relents, as if to say _finder’s keepers._

donghyuck says _i love you_ first. renjun would have never expected it, never at all. he doesn’t think donghyuck expected it, either. that was donghyuck’s way, though, deep down. cut and thrust. shoot from the hip.

the night’s almost over, television humming with the slow, dull programming that plays when everyone’s supposed to be sleeping. renjun is waiting for the kettle to boil, fiddling with the knobs on his stove just for something to do. donghyuck is sitting on one of the kitchen stools, elbows pressed against the countertop. renjun had assumed he was on his phone, or something, but donghyuck is looking at him, staring into the nape of his neck as if it is something entirely brand new. renjun places two mugs in front of himself. he sings along to some theme song on the TV, drumming his fingers on the counter.

“i love you.” donghyuck says, words spilling gracelessly out in front of him.

renjun turns to look at him.

renjun laughs, just a little, just to gauge whether or not donghyuck will laugh right back. donghyuck gets in those moods, sometimes. moods where he’ll drape himself all over renjun, try to fold himself inside of him, arms wrapping possessively around him as if he were some kind of prey. and all day, he’ll be like that, hiking his hands up his shirt, kissing every knuckle on his hands, burying his face into his neck, drawing his fingers across the insides of his arms, his wrists, his waist, his hair. sometimes, they’ll be in public and he’ll place his hand on renjun’s knee, drawing it across the bones of his knee and up around the curve of his muscle, little finger pressing into the protruding tendon at the juncture where his thigh begins to wane. and renjun will strangle donghyuck’s hand in his own, digging his nails in, and donghyuck’s eyes will flash with some smug satisfaction.

sometimes, they’ll be in bed and he’ll roll himself on top of renjun with a suddenness that draws the breath from his lungs, pressing his face down into the cavity of his chest like he wants to get inside.

but he only looks right back, no suggestion of surrender on his face.

“what did you say?” renjun croaks. he can hear the kettle beginning to crescendo beside him.

“i love you.”

renjun blinks. donghyuck says nothing else.

“come on.” renjun says. (pleads.)

donghyuck doesn’t say anything. renjun approaches the counter, searching him all over.

“don’t.”

“renjun—“

“you can’t.”

“i do.”

renjun lifts his hands, unsure of what to do with them. his mouth opens and closes, like a fish hooked.

“why?” renjun implores. “since when? why now?”

“you don’t love me?”

“donghyuck— please, it isn’t that—“

donghyuck reaches across and takes renjun’s hand, placing it on the side of his face, burying his mouth in the heel. he burns. renjun’s hand shakes against his skin.

“do you?” renjun whispers. he looks at donghyuck, begs him.

donghyuck nods, and renjun flinches back. he circles around the countertop, taking donghyuck’s face into his hands.

donghyuck will look at him until renjun knows, until renjun can see it. and he does, he does, hands reaching up to brush over renjun’s. the blue light of the television flares and falls over the high planes of his face, changing brightness every few moments. renjun shifts a finger just a little, just to see the freckles on his face.

he doesn’t relent. renjun’s bright, morning star.

“you must know. you must know by now.” renjun breathes.

donghyuck shakes his head. of course he does. he always knows.

but he wants to make renjun say it. it’s his way. renjun feels a fang snarl into that wound inside of him, reopening old scabs, drawing new blood.

“tell me.”

“i—“

“renjun.”

“i love you, i love you, of course, i—“

donghyuck has never been afraid of anything. how could he be? it’s the thing that always made him too bright for renjun’s eyes, too terrifying to hold for too long. he wants without fear, without hesitation, clever and calculated and lit up.

sometimes, he’ll turn to renjun and ask a frank: “when will you leave me?”. it’s never a question but a challenge, a dare.

renjun will smile and say: “not soon enough”, and that’ll be the end of that.

renjun can’t say the same for himself, though. he fears so much. he fears his own voraciousness. he fears that he loves too hard, too white-knuckled, too off-the-precipice. he fears his greed, he fears every selfish, ugly thing stewing inside him, locked under his bones where the light can’t get to it. he fears being alone, of course he does, and sometimes his fear will hike up so far inside him that it’ll cloud up his throat and he won’t be able to breathe at all. and he’ll shrink from donghyuck’s touch, shrink back away from the edges of his own body into something more safe, something further from seeing.

he fears that someday he’ll let donghyuck touch him in every way he wants to be touched, casting aside all trepidation, and he’ll be right. it’ll be every way he wants to be touched, it’ll be his whole self, as good as donghyuck’s. his whole self, condemned to be no longer anyone else’s, not even his own. he doesn’t know if donghyuck really understands, the magnitude of it. how _easy_ it would be for donghyuck to take the whole of him between his teeth, bury him only where he can find, leave him under his dirt, in his hiding places. it scares renjun, how easy it would be.

it scares renjun, the way it runs through him like a fever, the way it burns, the way it keeps him up at night, hot sweats, unable to eat, unable to think.

sometimes, he’ll look at donghyuck, and he’ll want to drive his hands hard into the middle of him; draw all the breath out of his lungs, seize him by the collar and wrestle him down to the floor, scream _it scares me right to the bone, the way i belong to you._ he’ll want to take off his hands, his legs, his teeth, shove them into donghyuck’s arms, scream _take all of it, stupid, get it over with already._

he would never. he has to keep some things for himself, lock them down under his ribcage, stow it away where no one can ever find it. and so he’s like that— cagey. donghyuck would have to steal away inside of him, tear through every piece of blood and bone and tissue, dirty himself with it all until he got right down to where renjun keeps it all, if he wanted to ever find it. and renjun would much rather that, much rather donghyuck ripped everything out of him to find every scary, ugly thing, taking the rest of him along the way, than give it up on his own.

he wonders if donghyuck knows what he’s doing to him. he doesn’t know what he’d prefer; either possibility is infuriating. 

he will watch donghyuck, every now and then, when he sleeps beside him. he sleeps and his face is suddenly soft, freckles aligning to form some kind of constellation. he’ll draw cautious fingertips from the top of his throat to the base, taking a moment to press just a little to the left. he can feel donghyuck’s heart beating slow and soft under his fingertips.

his own heart drums fast and vigilant; his bloodiest organ.

he wonders if, in its adrenaline, its drumming noise, its frenzy, its growling, it could be mistaken in the dark for some kind of creature. some kind of monster. if it would appear as horrifying as it feels.

renjun wonders if donghyuck would ever want to cut renjun’s heart out of him, if he’d ever fear it if he were to see it for what it was.

but no. donghyuck’s heart beats slow, soft. it aches. it’s almost unbearable.

but no. donghyuck isn’t afraid of anything. he can take renjun, as easy as the sun slips into the sea. it’s the distance between them.

and so, renjun is donghyuck’s for as long as he’ll have him, for as long as donghyuck is formidable and unyielding and unafraid. and donghyuck — well. locked down under renjun’s ribcage is a place for donghyuck, whether he likes it or not.

and he likes it.

**Author's Note:**

> part of this was written while i was listening to bedrock by young money but i wont tell u which
> 
> also i know i stole a line in here from the wall by anne sexton i think and i dont remember what it was so soz
> 
> thanks 4 sticking it out sorry i write everything in lapslock i just start it and get like a paragraph in and im like SHIT but then i cba to change it so i guess im just gonna keep it as a brand


End file.
